Recent studies document a decline in the share of labour and a simultaneous increase in the share of residual (‘factorless’) income in national GDP. We argue the need for study of factor incomes in cross-border production to complement country studies. We define a GVC production function that tracks the value added in each stage of production in any country-industry. We define a new residual as the difference between the value of the final good and the payments to all tangibles (capital and labour) in any stage. We focus on GVCs of manufactured goods and find the residual to be large. We interpret it as income for intangibles that are (mostly) not covered in current national accounts statistics. We document decreasing labour and increasing capital income shares over the period 2000-14. This is mainly due to increasing income for intangible assets, in particular in GVCs of durable goods. We provide evidence that suggests that the 2000s should be seen as an exceptional period in the global economy during which multinational firms benefitted from reduced labour costs through offshoring, while capitalising on existing firm-specific intangibles, such as brand names, at little marginal cost.

Today’s production processes are fragmented across countries and industries. Intangibles play an important role, but their measurement is elusive. This paper proposes a new empirical framework to measure factor incomes in production that spans industries and countries.

Global value chains (GVCs) powered the surge of international trade after 1990 and now account for almost half of all trade. This shift enabled an unprecedented economic convergence: poor countries grew rapidly and began to catch up with richer countries. Since the 2008 global financial crisis, however, the growth of trade has been sluggish and the expansion of GVCs has stalled. Meanwhile, serious threats have emerged to the model of trade-led growth. New technologies could draw production closer to the consumer and reduce the demand for labor. And trade conflicts among large countries could lead to a retrenchment or a segmentation of GVCs. World Development Report 2020: Trading for Development in the Age of Global Value Chains examines whether there is still a path to development through GVCs and trade. It concludes that technological change is, at this stage, more a boon than a curse. GVCs can continue to boost growth, create better jobs, and reduce poverty provided that developing countries implement deeper reforms to promote GVC participation; industrial countries pursue open, predictable policies; and all countries revive multilateral cooperation.

This report is about a huge contribution to our deepening understanding of what the global economy really means and how it is changing. The report helpfully distinguishes elements of an economy that are tradable and the large set that are non-tradable. Clearly the tradables set is expanding with the support of enabling technology. The report argues that connectivity in the networks that define the evolving architecture of GVCs is important. This Global Value Chain Development Report is the result of intensive and detailed work in assembling and analyzing data on the structure of economies and on how they are linked. It creates a much clearer picture of evolving patterns of independence. It also presents a much clearer picture of comparative advantage. --Publisher description.

A radical shift is underway in global value chains as they increasingly move beyond traditional manufacturing processes to services and other intangible assets. Digitization is a leading factor in this transformation, which is being accelerated by the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. The Global Value Chain Development Report, the third of a biennial series, explores this shift beyond production. The report shows how the rise of services value chains offers a new path to development and how protectionism and geopolitical tensions, environmental risks, and pandemics are undermining the stability of global value chains and forcing their reorganization geographically. It is co-published by the WTO, the Asian Development Bank, the Research Institute for Global Value Chains at the University of International Business and Economics, the Institute of Developing Economies, and the China Development Research Foundation.

Today's production processes are fragmented across countries and industries. Intangibles play an important role, but their measurement is elusive. Their use is not bound by a location and they can be shared across plants. We propose a new empirical framework to measure factor incomes in production that spans industries and countries. We define intangible capital income residually as the difference between the value of a final product and the costs of all tangible factor inputs (capital and labour) in any stage of production. We bring this to the data using the WIOD and additional national account statistics on capital stocks. For manufactured products we find that the share of intangible capital income in final output increased rapidly since 2000, levelling off after 2008. In 2014 it stood at about 31 per cent. This is much higher than the tangible capital income share (18 per cent). For pharmaceuticals, furniture, textiles and food the intangible income share remained roughly constant over 2000-2014. In contrast the share increased rapidly for machinery and equipment products until 2008, slightly declining afterwards. We find that across all products about one quarter of the intangibles incomes is realised in the distribution stage (from factory to consumer). One quarter is realised in the final production stage and half in other production stages. The latter has increased in particular in the early 2000. We discuss measurement problems and stress the explorative nature of the exercise.

This book aims to investigate the global value chain (GVC) from a viewpoint of industrial development and examine how GVC participation, upgrading, and connectivity have affected structural transformation in developing economies. It first reviews the indexes to measure progresses in GVC participation and upgrading. Then it examines factors affecting these progresses, using original measures of connectivity, which are computed based on the complex network theory. Another distinguished feature of the study is its in-depth analyses on the relationship between economic development and GVC participation based on the hypothesis of nonlinear relationship which is drawn from authors past studies on Asian economies. Major findings include (1) inverted-U shaped relationship between backward participation and income levels, (2) U shaped relationship between forward participation and income level, (3) marginal but significant impacts of maritime and aviation connectivity on GVC participation, (4) significant and different roles of basic and advanced education on the upgrading in GVCs, and (5) the importance of technological intensities in export in sustaining economic growth.

Global value chains (GVCs) are a key feature of the global economy in the 21st century. They show how international investment and trade create cross-border production networks that link countries, firms and workers around the globe. This Handbook describes how GVCs arise and vary across industries and countries, and how they have evolved over time in response to economic and political forces. With chapters written by leading interdisciplinary scholars, the Handbook unpacks the key concepts of GVC governance and upgrading, and explores policy implications for advanced and developing economies alike. p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 10.0px Arial}

A collection of papers by some of the world's leading specialists on global value chains (GVCs). It examines how GVCs have evolved and the challenges they face in a rapidly changing world. The approach is multi-disciplinary, with contributions from economists, political scientists, supply chain management specialists, practitioners and policy-makers. Co-published with the Fung Global Institute and the Temasek

The book looks to address the following questions in a post-crisis world: How have lead firms responded to the crisis? Have they changed their traditional supply chain strategy and relocated and/or outsourced part of their production? How will those changes affect developing countries? What should be the policy responses to these changes?